Türk Harf Devriminin Kültürel Temelleri
Cultural Foundations of the Turkish Alphabet Reform

Summary/Abstract: A letter is a sign that symbolises a sound in a language and forms the alphabet. These signs are expected to show the sounds of their language correctly and accurately. It is also desired of the alphabet to be easily written and read; because it is very important in social life and education that the alphabet is easy to be learnt and used correctly; for education is closely related to development, modernisation and social prosperity. Therefore, the Alphabet reform, which took place on 3 November 1928, has a special place and importance amongst Ataturk’s revolutions considering its reasons and consequence With the Alphabet reform, the Ottoman language which takes its source from Arabic was abandoned and the Turkish alphabet, created with modification of Latin alphabet, took its place. In this article, reasons and consequences of the Alphabet reform, discussions that took place after it and its effects to literature have been studied. The intellectual side, cultural basis and the consequences of the Alphabet reform have been studied with the qualitative examination methods from a wide point of view. This study consist of five parts: In the first part the relation between language, culture and writing is stated; in the second part the preparation process of the reform has been studied based on several sources; in the third part the discussions about the reform have been examined; fourth part is about the reflections of the alphabet reform in the western world and in the last part, the effects of the reform on Turkish literature have been briefly stated. All of these parts can separately be a subject of a research. The goal of this research is to present the researchers with the cultural basis of the alphabet reform on its reasons, the way it took place and its results through a wide point of view.

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